Building the Bridge: The Latin American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai Makes its Debut

Argentine and Peruvian Pavilions at SIAL Shanghai 2026. Image courtesy of Alejandro Vera.

From May 18 to 20, 2026, Shanghai hosted the world. Over 5,000 exhibitors from more than 132 countries and regions converged on the New International Expo Centre in Pudong for SIAL Shanghai, Asia's largest food and beverage trade fair. There, between buyer meetings and product tastings, a small but significant institution quietly did its work. The Latin American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, known as LAC+, supported two national pavilions at the event, coordinating logistics, facilitating introductions, and helping Latin American producers navigate one of the world's most complex consumer markets. While its presence at SIAL was brief, what it represents for the China-LATAM commercial relationship is considerably larger.

LAC+ at SIAL Shanghai

LAC+ supported both the Argentine and Peruvian national pavilions at this year's fair. For Argentina's pavilion, the chamber worked alongside premium wine and beef producers seeking to gain a foothold in China's consumer market. For the Peruvian pavilion, LAC+ partnered with the Lima Chamber of Commerce to connect Peruvian producers with Chinese buyers, distributors, and importers in Shanghai.

The work itself is unglamorous: product knowledge transfers, regulatory guidance, buyer introductions, cultural and logistical translation. This is precisely the kind of institutional infrastructure that determines whether a Latin American brand lands in a Shanghai supermarket or gets lost somewhere in China's customs documentation process.

What Is LAC+?

The Latin American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai occupies a space that remained largely unfilled for years. Country-specific bilateral trade bodies and diplomatic missions exist across the region, but a chamber dedicated to the collective commercial interests of Latin America, based inside China's principal business city, was absent.

LAC+'s founding premise is that Latin American countries share more common ground in their China strategies than their individual trade promotion efforts acknowledge. A collective platform creates credibility and operational leverage that no single-country effort can replicate, particularly for the small and medium-sized enterprises that make up the bulk of Latin American exporters.

The chamber's decision to base itself in Shanghai, rather than Beijing, is deliberate. Beijing is where embassies operate, and political dialogue takes place. Shanghai is where importers, distributors, food industry buyers, retail chains, and cross-border e-commerce platforms actually make purchasing decisions. For any institution serious about moving Latin American products into Chinese hands, Shanghai is the right city.

The China-LATAM Commercial Gap

China is already the largest trading partner of Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay, and the second largest for Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico. Its demand for Latin American products, such as soybeans, copper, lithium, and iron ore, is well established. What is shifting is the nature of the relationship itself.

China's 2025 policy paper on Latin America and the Caribbean explicitly called for deeper integration beyond commodities, including investment in services, renewable energy, telecommunications, and food processing. Simultaneously, Latin American companies that once focused entirely on bulk commodity exports are increasingly attempting to reach Chinese consumers directly with finished, packaged products.

That transition exposes a structural problem. Selling soybeans to a Chinese state-owned enterprise is operationally straightforward by comparison to selling a branded Peruvian quinoa product to a health-conscious consumer in Shanghai via a cross-border e-commerce platform. The latter requires market intelligence, regulatory compliance expertise, the development of a distributor network, and a sustained on-the-ground presence in China. Most Latin American SMEs lack that infrastructure. Most of their national export promotion agencies lack it too, at the depth and speed that the Chinese market demands.

LAC+ identified this market gap and has positioned itself to address it directly.

A Boston Political Review Exclusive Interview

Teo Rojas, co-founder of LAC+, pictured in the middle talking with SIAL attendees. Image courtesy of Alejandro Vera.

In an exclusive interview with the Boston Political Review, one of LAC+'s founders, Teo Rojas, discussed the chamber's vision, its work at SIAL, and its view of the future of the China-Latin America relationship. Mr. Rojas is also the founder of BRANDON, a luxury fashion management consulting firm and ARGO Superfoods, a supply chain consultancy for Latin American foods products.

LAC+ supported the Argentine and Peruvian pavilions at SIAL Shanghai this year. How does this on-site presence translate in practice, and why is it important? 

Our on-site presence means much more than coordinating an exhibition space. It involves supporting companies before, during, and after the trade fair. In practice, we assist with coordination with organizers, help interpret the dynamics of the Chinese market, and provide cultural and commercial support that is often crucial to the success of a meeting. China is a market of enormous opportunities, but also of great complexity. Being physically present in Shanghai allows us to act as an immediate bridge between Latin American companies and local stakeholders.

LAC+ operates from Shanghai, not Beijing. Why Shanghai, and what does this choice reveal about your vision of the trade relationship between China and Latin America? 

Beijing is the political center of China, but Shanghai is one of its main economic, financial, and commercial centers. Many of the business decisions that impact international trade are made here, and it is a hub for importers, distributors, e-commerce platforms, financial institutions, and major international events. Our presence in Shanghai reflects a very practical view of the relationship between China and Latin America. We understand that institutional relationships are important, but we also believe that trade is built through companies, investments, supply chains, and concrete business relationships. Being where these actors converge allows us to generate a more direct impact.

Most Latin American companies entering China focus on scale: the size of the market. Where do they typically go wrong? 

The market size is real, but it sometimes generates unrealistic expectations. A common mistake is assuming that entering China means immediate access to hundreds of millions of consumers. In reality, China functions more like a collection of multiple markets with significant regional, cultural, and economic differences. It's also common to underestimate the importance of local adaptation. Having a good product isn't enough. It's necessary to understand the Chinese consumer, build trust, develop appropriate channels, and be patient. Companies that understand China as a long-term strategy tend to achieve better results than those seeking immediate gains.

What is the main objective of LAC+? Is it trade facilitation, institutional representation, or something else? Or are these objectives separable in this context? 

In our experience, these objectives are deeply interconnected. Facilitating trade requires building institutional trust, and institutional representation only becomes meaningful when it generates concrete opportunities for businesses. LAC+ seeks to strengthen ties between Latin America and China from a practical, long-term perspective. We work to build bridges between institutions, businesses, and investors, fostering an ecosystem that facilitates economic, trade, and cultural cooperation.

The relationship between China and Latin America is increasingly framed in geopolitical terms: the incorporation of countries into the Belt and Road Initiative, the observation of the United States, and the pressure for countries to take sides. Does this approach facilitate or hinder the work of LAC+? 

Geopolitics is part of the current international context, and it is natural that it influences discussions about relations between China and Latin America. However, our work is primarily carried out in the business and institutional sphere. Companies seek markets, growth opportunities, strategic partners, and investment. Consumers seek quality products. At LAC+, we promote a vision based on cooperation, dialogue, and mutual benefit. We believe that Latin America and China have significant opportunities to collaborate in trade, innovation, sustainability, infrastructure, and productive development. Our role is to contribute to strengthening these areas of cooperation, regardless of any geopolitical debates that may exist in the international arena.

More Than a Trade Fair Booth

What distinguishes LAC+ from a standard export promotion body is ambition. The chamber is not designed to service the Peruvian pavilion at SIAL and disappear until the next trade fair. It is designed to build the connective tissue between two regions that have real commercial complementarities and equally real operational friction; not from any lack of mutual interest, but from the cultural, linguistic, regulatory, and logistical distances that make the relationship harder to sustain than headlines about bilateral trade volumes suggest.

The broader bet LAC+ is making is that building this infrastructure now, from the Shanghai end, is the right move. China's consumer class is not shrinking. Latin America's agricultural and natural resource base is not becoming less relevant to the Chinese industry. The gap between those two markets and the thin institutional architecture currently connecting them is precisely where LAC+ is trying to carve a foothold.

Whether the geopolitical environment cooperates is a separate question, and an open one. U.S.-China competition is reshaping the strategic landscape for Latin American governments at a pace beyond the control of commercial institutions. But commerce has its own logic, and the buyers and sellers operating in Shanghai's food industry do not wait for Washington or Beijing to settle their differences before placing orders.